


Christmas Like In The Old Days

by AgentMal



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: BuckyNat Secret Santa, Christmas, Christmas Party, F/M, Past Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Past Matt Murdock/Natasha Romanov, bastically comics canon past relationships more or less
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28709313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentMal/pseuds/AgentMal
Summary: Bucky Barnes and Natasha Romanov both attend holiday parties where they long for the other. Then they make a little holiday retreat of their own.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: BuckyNat Secret Santa 2020





	Christmas Like In The Old Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QuietlyImplode](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietlyImplode/gifts).



> Speech in << >> indicates speech in Russian.  
> In Russia, Christmas is traditionally celebrated on January 7.  
> Svyatki takes place from then until January 19, and fortune telling is just one of the traditions associated with it.  
> Some of the Christmas foods mentioned:  
> Sbiten - hot honey fruit spice drink  
> Kutia - cooked rice porridge dessert involving fruit and nuts  
> Pastila - an apple pastry somewhat like coffee cake  
> Kolyadki - cookies made with fresh curds traditionally offered to carolers.  
> Tsarigrad is a former Slavic name for Istanbul, still occasionally used in Bulgarian, though archaic in Russian.  
> The Nativity Fast takes place for the 40 days up to Christmas, ending Christmas Eve.  
> Hubava Milka or Beautiful Milka is a traditional Bulgarian folk song that was probably not originated specifically as a Christmas song but is sometimes associated with Christmas and wintertime. Lyrics translation can be found [here](https://lyricstranslate.com/en/hubava-milka-beautiful-milka.html).
> 
> If you enjoy a suggested music pairing while reading, I recommend this song:  
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l70d0b4DvE8>  
> <https://open.spotify.com/track/69pw6HozMhD54CaMPsu3RK>

Dec 20

People drank punch or cider or mulled wine, and ate fruitcake and pie and Christmas cookies, and talked and laughed while holiday music could be faintly heard through the din. Now and again the bells hung on the door would jingle as someone arrived or left, always drawing his eye. Some of the younger lot were causing trouble in various ways, including repurposing decorations to construct some unholy and ever growing tower of finely balanced bric a brac. Like some reverse game of Jenga. Bucky watched from a corner and tried to be inconspicuous. The Avengers holiday party was always raucous, with so many of them gathered together informally it made sense they’d want to blow off steam, and Bucky certainly didn’t want to be discouraging.

The people here deserved this: having a rare moment of rest and fun all together, experiencing this gentler aspect of fellowship than the one they usually experienced in action. They weren’t responsible for what was missing for Bucky tonight. And there was warmth all around, in people’s faces and body language and words, and he was happy for them.

He remembered warm American Christmases as a child with his family, as a young man with Steve and the Howlies, and eventually as the new man he is now with this new family. And from the period of time he was not his own, he also remembered snatches of Christmases and other winter holidays from across the years, the ones he was awake to see, but those that were American were not warm, not for him, and the few that were warm were something else entirely. It was the few Christmases in Russia that he had gotten to observe, instead of just see through a sniper scope, that were on his mind tonight.

Usually, he had no problem being present at these things — parties, social gatherings — simply experiencing what was before him, not off in his head about things that were, but not tonight. Tonight, for some reason, he saw punch and mulled wine and only saw an absence of sbiten, saw the pies and cookies and thought it was incomplete without pastila or at least kutia.

“Angsting about Christmas?” asked a savvy young voice. Well, not that young, but younger than him.

Bucky didn’t bother to prevaricate, “I was trying to be subtle.”

Peter huffed. “You’re staring at the dessert table like it’s a lump of coal. Something you used to have ‘back in the day’ you’re feeling nostalgic for?”

Yes, but not the way Peter thought.

Bucky shook his head, shrugging nonchalantly. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not even Christmas yet.” Not for almost three weeks in a certain measure. In Russia Christmas was on the 7th of January.

Peter shrugged expressively, “Well, it’s _almost_ Christmas, but that’s the spirit! Still not too late to scratch up some Great Depression Christmas Porridge, or whatever it is you’re nostalgic for.”

Come to think about it, kutia kind of is a great depression Christmas porridge.

“Parker, leave the old man alone.” Bucky did not expect intervention from Kate Bishop, but she’d surprised him enough times now that that was more a commentary on him than her at this point. “Come watch America and Kamala arm wrestle.”

Peter’s eyes went wide. “Yes, ma’am!” And off he went.

Bucky watched them and tried to connect with the warmth he felt for them all, telling himself off for having any touch of holiday blues, so unlike him, and eventually shoved off from the corner, put a smile on his face, and committed to mingling.

His friends and colleagues made his smile genuine before long, even made him laugh, though some part of him still felt cold and unmoved.

That is, until the tinkle of the bells over the door drew his gaze across the crown to a particular head of red hair, and suddenly it felt like the warmth from the party had finally reached him.

He navigated quickly and discreetly through the crowd — not directly for her, at an angle — and she did likewise, putting them beside each other moments later.

Others had greeted her with a hug or a hand shake or a wave, but Bucky pressed the front of his right shoulder into her right shoulder, not even making eye contact at first, and they took a moment to press toward each other, lean their heads until they were pressed together.

Bucky took a deep breath and sighed in relief, then exchanged an intimate greeting with her in Russian.

He saw her coy smile from the corner of his eye, and tilted his head to look a little more directly.

“<<I was craving sbiten before you arrived,>>” he confessed.

“<<You can’t have had that in years, decades. Nostalgic for the motherland?>>”

He nodded in agreement, “<<For something. >>”

She considered him. “<<That’s not like you.>>”

“<<Maybe I just missed you,>>” he quickly darted a kiss to her temple, sparking a brighter smile on her face, “<<Maybe it was seeing the kids here messing around that did it, but I suddenly remembered you and the other little spiders fortune telling.>>”

“What are you guys talking about?” Teddy asked, turning from his conversation with Eli and Susan Storm. Eli gave Teddy a look.

“Fortune telling,” he replied, allowing space between Natasha and himself as they both turned to face them.

“Huh?”

Natasha elaborated. “It’s an old Russian tradition, Svyatki, to tell fortunes after Christmas for the new year.”

“Oh, fascinating,” said Sue, “Is it connected with the Epiphany mythos somehow?”

“It predates the Christian influence. Actually, it’s technically forbidden in Eastern Orthodoxy, but it was still a tradition even up to the mid late 20th century...”

Bucky let himself be pulled away by someone, leaving Natasha and Sue at it. Later in the evening when he and Natasha found themselves beside each other again, he asked about her latest mission and saw on her a look that he knew.

“You look like that mission you were on is not over.”

She smiled grimly. “Nick was going to wait until tomorrow to tell you.” To let them have this party and the night after, he thought. Nick was softening in his age. “He has a job for you, from the intel I got.”

“Where?”

She replied in Russian, “<<Somewhere familiar.>>”

Bucky clenched his jaw, casting his eyes around the party, not bothering not to switch languages himself, “Do you know when I leave?”

“<<Tomorrow, perhaps day after.>>”

He sighed, “And I don’t suppose it’s a quick in-and-out?”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

Dec 25

“‘I wouldn’t think so,’” he muttered to himself, sarcastically. Three days since landing in Bucharest and Bucky had already tracked Bezrukov across two borders. Gleb Bezrukov was on the move, and he was broadly suspicious, and was careful. But the hard drive burning a hole in his pocket (or his briefcase, or his inner coat pocket as the case may be) would wait as long as it took for Bucky to get close enough. And Bucky in turn could wait for Bezrukov to contact his fence, to get both the drive and hopefully a lead on the bigger characters at play.

Now, on the road to Istanbul, Bucky hoped Bezrukov was going to turn around. If he was planning on getting lost in Istanbul, he had a half decent shot of succeeding. Bezrukov would prefer the more familiar territory to the north, but the chaos and density of the city would appeal to him with how dangerous his cargo was.

But Bucky got his hope: Bezrukov stopped for a late breakfast well before reaching _Tsarigrad_ and left (in a different vehicle, and not before Bucky had made a stop at the market) heading in the opposite direction. By nightfall Bucky was watching his mark have dinner on the waterfront in Varna while Bucky lingered in the audience of a choir a healthy way down the promenade. Hours later, when Bezrukov was asleep and Bucky had arranged his own bed along with measures to maintain his tail, he finally was able to eat his own dinner. As he broke into a meat-stuffed bun, huddling in his coat in an unlit and unheated apartment, he thought back to warmer times: waking up by Natasha after the party, their happy hours in a cozy bed, and their conversation before he left to meet Fury.

_“I have a proposition for you, soldier.”_

_“Mmmm, I like your propositions.”_

_“Stop it,” she said, exuding fondness._

_“So what is it?”_

_“ <Let’s do Christmas together,>>” she said in Russian, “<<We can meet at the safehouse outside Bryansk... when this is done.>>”_

_“ <<Christmas,>>” he said, that word meaning something different for him in Russian than English, “like old times?”_

_“ <<Like old times,>>” she repeated, her gaze intent, her language underscoring her meaning. _

_Of course he wanted to, and it would take an amount of planning, and he had to head to his meeting far too soon, but they quickly arranged the essentials._

_“There’s a chance I’ll be cutting it close, with this job.”_

_“You have sixteen days, and you’re highly motivated. I believe you can get it done in time to meet me for mass on Christmas Eve.”_

_Bucky shoved his hair out of his face, grimacing like he’d just been served cat food, “Mass? You hated mass. And it’s not like it’s our religion.”_

_“It’s how it started. Mass was the end of the fast, the beginning of the fun.”_

_He rolled his eyes, “Fine.”_

_“Don’t be like that, you like the music.”_

_“ <<I prefer the carols.>>” _

In fact he did enjoy the church music, but he loved the carols, and listening to them for over an hour tonight had been no hardship. He still had Hubava Milka stuck in his head. He went to sleep with images of Beautiful Milka (in his mind’s eye red haired but otherwise anonymous) stepping into a merchant ship on the Varna waterfront and sailing away out of reach.

Dec 31

Another day, another holiday party. This one had fewer actual children, though as many or more significant others. Or less significant: Natasha didn’t even recognize who Matt Murdoch had on his arm, though the lady didn’t seem intimidated as she chatted with Tony Stark and Emma Frost. Matt caught Natasha looking and excused himself to join her, smiling.

“She looks nice.”

Matt gently punched her arm, “Shut up. Her name is Marsha and she’s delightful.”

“I can see, she’s holding her own pretty well. Though it was less than chivalrous of you to leave her.”

“And you, you’re here stag?”

“We don’t all need to show up with a date to have someone to kiss at midnight,” if she even wanted to.

“Oh, and who’s the best contender right now?”

“Maybe I’ll let America, if Kate doesn’t make a move. Maybe it’ll motivate her to do something already.”

Matt quirked an eyebrow, “Kate Bishop?”

They both turned to spot the archer (Matt with the cock of his head) who was indeed staring after America half the room away. Clint was telling her about something she was nodding along with but not really listening to. Clint had yet to notice. The look on Kate’s face spoke volumes.

“Huh,” Matt said in minute surprise, “How long since you noticed?”

Natasha rolled her eyes, “Before Kate noticed, though that’s not saying much.”

“Aren’t you a little old for America?”

“I’m more than twice your age, Matt.”

Matt burst into laughter. “Fair enough.”

Clint still hadn’t noticed Kate’s inattention, but he did see Matt and Natasha looking his way, and came over.

“Hey, Happy New Year!”

Natasha quietly replied “Not yet,” even as Matt said, “Hi, Clint.”

Clint nodded to them both.“Sure, another couple hours. Nice party, huh?”

“It could be better,” she said.

“Nat’s here stag,” Matt said in mock secrecy.

“Oh, no! You wanna come home with Bobbi and me?”

That made both Matt and Natasha smile, what would have been raucous laughter from anyone else.

“I don’t need someone to kiss at midnight, or a date for the party or after.”

“Of course,” Matt said neutrally, “You don’t _need_ anything like that, you just deserve it if you want it.”

Clint nodded hard in agreement, “With me, with him,” he said gesturing to Matt, who finished his sentence.

“With anyone you’re so inclined with.”

Clint continued earnestly, “And when it was with either of us,” here he gestured between himself and Clint, “we were entirely expendable.”

Matt nodded, sincere, “Yup.”

Make it stop. 

“I wouldn’t say entirely. You each have… distinctive features and abilities.” Really she just wanted this conversation to move on. She said it to provoke a reaction and break the earnestness.

It worked, of course. Clint and Matt did the equivalent of waggling their eyebrows at each other, they may as well have high fived. Perhaps they were about to.

“Ooookay, that’s about enough from you two.”

Clint wrapped an arm around her waist, hugging her to his side, “But you love us.”

She did. She didn’t bother to say it. 

Matt, who still had a hand lightly on her back that had lingered from before, slid his arm around, pressing to her other side. She naturally reached each of her own arms around them.

She did love them. She didn’t bother to say it. Her allowing and reciprocating and then remaining in their embrace was eloquent enough. They weren’t who she was thinking of, but she held them and was held by them and was grateful for these friends. 

She let them linger that way for a minute, and then gently disengaged and then gave each of them a look that was the equivalent, from her, of her kissing them on the forehead. Matt excused himself to return to his date, which he should have done minutes before.

Clint turned and quietly asked, “Is Barnes on a mission?”

Natasha’s eyes flashed sharply to his. It wasn’t like him to be quite so observant, aware, and precise in this arena.

Clint nodded sagely, his question answered. The effect was somewhat ruined by him then saying, “Kate told me to ask.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Kate should put more of her energy toward her own interests. Chavez isn’t going to line herself up for her.”

Clint boggled at this information. “Excuse me,” and he was gone.

Finally alone, Natasha enjoyed people watching, later on trading much lighter conversation with other party-goers. When midnight came she raised a glass and cheered as others did, and for just a moment thought about that cabin in Bryansk. 

Jan 6 

The drive toward Bryansk was almost over. The mission had wrapped with only slightly more time than the drive would take him to get there by Christmas, but days of hard driving had him on track to get to the cabin by midday Christmas Eve. 

_The fire was crackling merrily. The air was warm and cozy inside, though brutally cold outside. “I brought basic provisions, but not all the myriad ingredients we’ll need.” Neither of them wanted to go outside, let alone make the drive to a store. Luckily, they didn’t have to._

_“I brought spices, walnuts, apricots, and raisins from Turkey and more spices from a market in Ukraine, honey and and blackberry preserves from Romania.”_

They would have time before mass to start cooking, and with any luck they would get enough done that all they would have to do was put things from icebox to stove or oven, or eat, the next day. They would make kutia, pastila, sbiten, soup, baked pastry-wrapped meats. All the things they had been teased with in the Red Room but had never been allowed to have except perhaps sparingly one at a time.

_“But we have to make kolyadki, too, what if there are carolers?”_

_Bucky nodded. “I picked up rye flower when I passed through Varna, and fresh curd cheese along with the other fresh things two towns back.”_

All the use of the stove and the oven would do the work of heating the cabin from above freezing to cozy. Bucky fantasized about the heat on the frigid drive, driving highway lined with steep banks of the plowed snow. He hoped Natasha had reason to think the roads to the cabin were cleared and the woodpile was stacked and dry. He certainly hadn’t been there in the winter in years. 

_Her smile was radiant, easy. “You thought of everything.”_

_“So did you. You proposed this place, got it ready.”_

_“I did, and it started before I arrived. I had to bribe someone to make sure the road was cleared.”_

The drive was long and he skipped sleep to make it in time, fantasizing about their holiday together to stave off sleep and boredom. When there was sbiten and soup bubbling on the stove, and dinner in the oven, and the pastila was ready to go in after it, he would pause and take in the concert of all the smells together, and he would turn and kiss her and feel like he was sinking into a warm bath. 

_It turned out in practice that when the foods were on the stove and in the oven, the intimacy they shared was far more heightened than any kiss. It went like this. He took a wooden spoonful of the mushroom soup, smelling as or more amazing than he had remembered, and offering it to her to sip. She did, her eyes closing in bliss. With the ingredients they had at their disposal now, everything they made here would be richer, finer, butterier, sweeter than any version they had been allowed in the Red Room. It literally surpassed the ideal conjured in their nostalgia, nostalgia they rarely felt and even more rarely indulged in._

_He tasted the soup himself and felt chills and the savory pleasure of it. She handed him one of the kolyadki from the batch they did before they started making dinner. It sent him back to the year he had met her, when she was a child, and he was sneaking her contraband sweets._

_“Do you remember when you were 12 and I brought you—”_

_“You brought me carmels, and korovka, and toffees, and one time kolyadki.”_

_“I hadn’t called that to mind in years.”_

_“Those were some of the safest and sweetest memories I have from that time.”_

_“I never felt more human, more of my own agency, in all my time with the soviets.”_

Bucky didn’t know it as he drove, but they would both discover, almost by accident, that kolyadki tasted like safety to Natasha, and humanity to Bucky. They would continue to sample their creations, unlocking memory and fantasy. 

_Everything tasted better than they had remembered or imagined. They had to take long pauses between each bite, eyes often closed, or locked on each other intensely, in mutual memory. It was better than sex._

_Not all the memories were pleasant, and not all were shared memories, but in those cases they told each other, the other drinking it up as avidly as they consumed everything else._

When the final road, long and winding, came to the the little cabin safehouse, and Bucky came to a stop, he took a breath and heaved a huge sigh. He had made it. There were bags of groceries and accumulated supplies from six countries, enough wood in the wood pile he could see to keep a fire lit the entire week they would be here if they wanted, and light coming from the curtained window. He had only used this safehouse for work before, the only time he’d been here, but right now walking up to the door felt like coming home. 

He opened the door and took in the person he had come for, traded an expression sweeter than a smile. 

“<<Merry Christmas>>.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was made for the prompts   
> -Mission in Russia  
> -Angst of being reunited for Christmas  
> -ways to celebrate Christmas
> 
> While the mission was not explicitly in Russia, we can imagine Bucky's chase of Gleb Bezrukov went into Russia in it's trail across the former USSR.


End file.
